The gateways for attackers are often not technical vulnerabilities in systems, but carelessness or ignorance on the part of employees. Axept Business Software AG is determined to counter this risk factor.
In e3 AG, Axept has found a partner that provides expert support in the area of cyber security awareness. Two joint projects have already been successfully completed and further collaboration is planned.

Challenges

• Bypassing spam filters
• Addressing employees with different IT skills

Results

• Increased safety awareness among employees
• Holistic IT security approach

There has been a massive increase in cyber attacks in recent years. Increasing digitalization and networking are opening up countless new attack vectors for cyber criminals. Work that each and every one of us carries out on a daily basis also harbors major risks. Axept Business Software AG wants to counteract these dangers and has decided to train its employees in cyber security awareness. In this project, e3 AG was able to support Axept with its expertise. The joint projects were divided into two parts. In addition to the actual training - which formed the second part of the project - a phishing simulation was also part of the project in each case. This combination offered Axept a holistic approach to improving the security awareness of the workforce.

Phishing simulation

The first step of the awareness campaign was to carry out a phishing simulation with the workforce. In each case, an individualized scenario was designed together with Axept. In both projects, a tailor-made message template (phishing email), a customized landing page (login page) and an account page (displayed after login) were created.
All employees then received an email with an individual link to the landing page, which was used to record the click behavior of the recipients.
After the phishing simulations were completed, detailed evaluation reports were prepared with the respective results of the campaigns. These reports also contained important findings and measures for potential improvements in the area of IT security. In addition to the evaluation report, a management briefing is also included in e3 AG's offer. A set of slides was prepared for the Axept management, which presents the results, findings and recommended measures in a management-friendly manner. The results of the phishing simulation and the findings from the evaluation report formed the basis for the subsequent awareness training.

Awareness training

After using the phishing simulation to gain an overview of the level of awareness of the dangers of emails within the workforce, individualized awareness training was created and carried out.
The focus was on the topics of passwords, using the cloud, email, secure surfing and working from home. The content of the training was deliberately explained in an easy-to-understand way so that even people without an IT background could follow it without any problems. The employees were given simple tips and tricks that they can follow and implement directly in their day-to-day work. In this way, they make an essential contribution to improving Axept's IT security.
The offer was rounded off with a flyer. This briefly and concisely describes the most important points of cyber security awareness and was made available to Axept employees.

Conclusion

Creating security awareness among employees when handling IT resources is a central component of a holistic security strategy. Targeted measures can achieve a significant improvement even with small investments. e3 AG is proud to be able to support Axept Business Software AG in its efforts to achieve sustainable and holistic IT security.